Category Archives: CMHT

I wrote this in October 2013, so it’s a bit backdated, but I guess it gives a quick overview of where I’ve been and, my mental health history for anyone that might read this and not want to track back and starts to show how I got where I am I guess. Hopefully it’s not too self indulgent.

Ok so maybe this isn’t quite the worst month of my life, but it’s definitely top five. I think it’s actually quite hard to tell sometimes just what was the worst thing ever, especially in the moment. Loads of things are awful. Bereavement sucks. Being dumped sucks. Not having enough money to buy the shower gel you really wanted sucks. Maybe when you’re really old and looking back at your life you work it out. All I know is that this month has been monumentally tragic, even in comparison to a lot of my other awful times. It’s almost laughable, if it wasn’t me, In this post, I’m going to explain why.

Within the month of October 2013, I’ve been dumped by a boy I loved (who had the emotional maturity of a grapefruit), who I then got back together with for a total of four days, only to be dumped again and have him steal my pitiful amount of money. I then made that fantastic choice of fucking him, just to let him tell me how much I suck and how crazy and sad I am. Followed by him leaving the country. My housing situation is tenuous I think. Some major disagreements with the family led to me living with said boy, which has now left me living half with my family, which is difficult for them as much as for me, and living half with a drug dealer who can set me up with some tasks when I’m more than my average broke. Being broke should go on this list, but that’s pretty much a permanent. My treatment has increased – I’m now, I’m in treatment for mental health problems almost every day and I’m being offered NHS funded private rehab for at least three months. All of which means I have to face the highly likely prospect of taking yet another year out of finishing the one year masters degree I’m already in my fourth year of. Even so, I’m still barely coming to terms with the fact that I have something labelled “complex needs” by essentially all health and social care workers. This is not exactly how I imagined my life would be at 24.

Getting where I am right now has been a painfully long process. In reality, everyone’s life is just a painfully long process from birth to wherever they are now I guess. I could start my story in childhood, which my therapist says probably was invalidating and hindered my emotional development or some next drama, but it’s not important. I had a nothing but lovely childhood. My conscious awareness of some sort of emotional issue probably started in my teens. At around 13, I started drinking, smoking, getting high, liking boys and self-harming. Self-harm at that point wasn’t weird. My friends all did it too, I just took it further, and never really stopped. I think looking back, I probably was a little more nervous and a little unhappier than my peers, but at the time I wasn’t emotionally capable of looking outside my own world and hindsight is often a fallacy. I got good at self-harming, and even better at hiding it.

By 15, no one talked about it, but I still did. I also started having panic attacks all the time. I went to my GP and got my first mental health diagnosis – depression and panic disorder. Off I went to some fairly dull and pointless counselling, which may have been great if I’d engaged with it, but at 15, how many people can be fucked?

I got through college with a lot of cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, self-harm and boys. I got through it well and did really quite good considering, but that life had its toll. Too many nights of too much excess in clubs I was definitely too young to be in led to me completely crashing emotionally. Just before my exams. I spent weeks in bed, ran away to Yorkshire, spent more weeks in bed and was dragged to my GP again. Again, the diagnosis was depression. This time I was prescribed Prozac (and later citalopram), told to go to the surgery counsellor and sent on my way.

I didn’t go to the counsellor. Instead, I ran off to Bristol for university. My first year of uni was properly batshit cray. Antidepressants, a change in contraceptive pill, dropping all my hobbies and friends and family to enter the horror of finding new hobbies and friends was all a little much. My self-harm and generally crazy behaviours went into overdrive and behind closed doors (but in front of my unfortunate, but ultimately a prick new boyfriend), I became the most dramatic crazy person ever. Inefficiently executed suicide attempts, blood and sharpie markers all over me and my dorm, running away, cold showers with all my clothes still on, half a litre of vodka each night, drugs wherever I could find them. It was messy, but with no follow up from my GP, it all went unnoticed.

When I finally cold turkey gave up the antidepressants at the end of summer, I was fucking miserable and doing seriously terrible at uni. I hated myself, I felt like a failure and I didn’t know what to do. Lucky for me, I quickly found losing weight. I focused myself on to eating healthy and going to the gym and found something I was good at. I was bloody fantastic at losing weight. It made me feel good. It made me feel proud. It made me feel in control (finally). So I did that, and I dropped self-harm, got substantially less trashed, was able to focus on university and slowly became more and more focused on losing weight. That went on for the next three years and I ended up seriously underweight and trapped in anorexia, obsessing over food and exercise. Still, I did good at uni and I graduated well, so started and MA.

Halfway through my MA, I became so critically ill that, after being shipped around various primary care therapy services, I was referred to a specialist eating disorders unit (EDU) and started actually getting treatment. I was so unwell, my uni boyfriend from Bristol wound up dumping me and we spent the next year and a half breaking up. Turns out he was an abusive bastard and I couldn’t see it. Years of domestic from someone I loved is pretty hard to deal with if you don’t have an eating disorder to escape from it.

For a while, I was still too unwell with anorexia to really noticed what it was providing me, so I was still focused and obsessed enough to complete all my taught units in my MA, but by my last assignment (two years after starting my MA), I was almost out of treatment with my EDU, emotionally disastrous, self-harming everyday, on and off of antipsychotics and mood stabilisers, back on antidepressants and in and out of hospital for stitches, glue and lethal overdoses (I’d got smarter since I was last like this, so way more efficient. Intelligence isn’t always a good thing). It was around this time my EDU diagnosed me with borderline personality disorder and referred me to my local Community Mental Health Team (CMHT). By this point, I was too ill to even contemplate a dissertation so decided to defer my assessment.

This last year, I’ve been in dialectical behavioural therapy (DBT – specialist therapy for people with borderline), but I’ve also been honing my alcohol and Valium misuse to block out all my difficult thoughts and emotions, and topping them off with whatever other substances head my way. I went into another relationship with yet another person who doesn’t know how to treat their partner and wound up homeless, scarred, broke and an addict. I hadn’t realised I was an addict until a few weeks ago when I was told. I thought I was going to be able to finish my degree this year, have some time off and hopefully start a PGCE and I was finally letting myself get some hope that I might be able to catch up to my peers and actually set up some sort of life I can be proud of. That’s suddenly looking less likely right now. I’m now in a drug and alcohol treatment program 3-4 days a week, individual DBT once a week, group. DBT once a week, my day programme key worker once a fortnight, my Community Drug and Alcohol Team (CDAT) case worker once a fortnight, my Community Recovery Team (CRT – previously my CMHT) psychiatrist once a month and my CRT social worker at some point and some amount. And you know I might be in rehab in a few months.

So here I am. Worst. Month. Ever. I’m actually pretty fucking unhappy right now, but I’m sure that’s not exactly hard to guess. Apparently (according to mental health workers), I suffer ‘severe and enduring’ mental health problems, I’m ‘high risk’ of serious injury, physical illness or death, I’m ‘low functioning’ and have a limited ability to independently thrive within mainstream society and I have ‘complex needs.’ I guess I have got a kinda complex case – you can tell by the amount of people involved in my care (it’s got to the point where it’s overwhelming and confusing).

Still, I’m smart, articulate and jokes, plus try so hard to be nice to people. For some unknown reason, I fully believe this pessimist shit sells me short. I don’t want to be in treatment or care or whatever all my life. I think I’ve got potential. I’ve got through a lot and still have a load more to do, but maybe I can be more then all these unhelpful labels.

Anyway, I’ve blogged before, mostly about my recovery from anorexia. I didn’t realise it’d get more complicated after that and I let a lot of my real life friends read it. I’m not all that sure about sharing addiction and self harm problems with my real life friends yet is a good idea, but I don’t like hiding away. I found it really helpful blogging though, and I think maybe blogging more would be useful still. It might not be though. Or maybe I’ll be too high to look at it. We’ll see I guess.

Hiya guys! I wonder if anyone even remembers this blog exists. I sure don’t most of the time. A lot has changed I guess. I think the biggest, bestest change is that I really don’t worry about food that much. I stay around the same weight, though I duno how much that is because I haven’t weighed myself in about six months. I know my clothes all fit the same, basically all the time. And it’s a healthy size too. So for an eating disorder blog, there seems to be a distinct lack of eating disorder happening. I just eat – sometimes healthy, sometimes McDonald’s. I still have a bit of a problem with drinking calories, but I do when I really want to and it has no real negative impact on my life, doesn’t play on my mind and doesn’t give me unreal amounts of guilt so I don’t think it’s a problem.

It’s been quite nice taking a super long time off blogging because its given me time to get away from that eating disorder mindset. I haven’t focused on it and I don’t think about it too much. It’s good. Great in fact. I’ve been moving on and I’m doing well and kinda losing that bit of my identity. I mean, it still is plays a part in making me who I am, but in a kinda positive way. I eat a whole load of junk and I don’t have mad guilt. I now just think “I’m eating this because its tasty and I enjoy it and it makes me feel good.” I don’t even think about calories. I don’t read food packaging religiously. I just eat, but whilst actually thinking positively about it and enjoying food as it should be enjoyed really. I duno if I would have got to this point without having been eating disordered in the first place. I duno if I would have actually ever been able to reach a point where food is just enjoyable and good, with no baggage. And I feel fucking awful for anyone that struggles to eat without mental drama of some sort. Being a girl that eats like a beast is now a part of who I am. I like that.

What other things are new…

Well I’m basically living south of the river now (ergh) with some friends. There was essentially this huge dramarama involving self-harm, overdosing, stitches and Gym. It really wasn’t his fault, but he was trashed and responded badly, then he was banned from my home so we moved to his. Then he got evicted, so we moved to whoever would have us. My friends said they’d put him up for a month and me up as long as I want. It’s good to get some space from what’s going on at home and I’m intending on heading back there, but for now I’m back in the family homestead.

See, I’m not sure I even have any blogging friend anymore. I’m not sure anyone who might read this will understand me or even care. I used to have blog friends, but I disappeared for almost a year. I got wrapped up in a boy who I love and gave all I have too. I lost myself entirely and in truth, I didn’t mind. I got attached in a really BPD way. He was my all or nothing. My emotional self became entirely reliant and I began to need him in a way I guess he didn’t respond to. I find trust almost impossible, find it hard to have him leave for a little while because it feels like rejection and I get desperate for him to stay. I try and fix anything and go to completely ridiculous extents. In one argument, he wanted space and tried to leave whilst I ended up on my knees, crying and begging him to stay. He controlled all my love and all my anxiety. I can understand my illogical, broken thinking, but it still effects my emotions and behaviours. Our arguments became fierce. My whole self became dependent on him.

At the same time, his life has kinda fallen apart. He’s homeless, with terrible credit and a job with shit pay. He’s shit at saving as well which doesn’t help and hasn’t got a great support network. He needs to sort his shit out. I’ve done nothing but try to help, but apparently my help wasn’t very good. In his opinion, he isn’t in a position to have a relationship right now. I get it, but it’s killing me.

Apparently I’m also too much. I rely on him too much and became too much of a priority for him. I stressed him though. I call too much, text too much, need to see him too much. I rely on him to help me be ok. He can’t do it right now and fix his own life up. He says it’s just too much. He says he loves me and does want a relationship right now, but he needs a break. A break to fix up his life whilst I fix up mine. A break of an undisclosed amount of time.

I didn’t want a break. I wanted to step back from the relationship, but keep a relationship going. He didn’t. We decided we’d stay friends during the break. We’d still contact each other, see each other a little etc., but then I think he changed his mind. He wants to emotionally detach from me. I don’t want this at all. I don’t even know if we’re good together but I want him in my life so much. So I sent him a text telling him what I was up to, but a few hours later he text me to tell me how much it wasn’t ok. I was out at a party, having a really nice time, totally trashed, but these texts devastated me. I had to go home, in absolute mountains of tears, too trashed to deal with it and hurting too much to understand.

We ended up texting last night. He told me it’s either no contact or break up. I said I needed time to think about it and he gave me the night. Then changed his mind that I had a night and stopped communication then and there. I don’t know if we’ve broken up or not. I also don’t understand how the break would end if we’re not talking and there’s no end date. He text in the middle of the night to explain why he was being a bit of a dick, but didn’t explain anything or apologise.

So now I’m just confused and hurting and I don’t know what to do. It sucks out really. Apparently I love him and he loves me, but maybe we can’t talk and maybe we can. Maybe we’ve broken up, maybe we’re on a break. I can’t ask because contacting might make him angry and hate me more. I don’t know what I want or what he wants and I’m desperately sad. I’m so sad because I’m so confused. It’s so unpredictable and unstable and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know whether to move on or keep where I am. I feel really horrible and I can’t turn to the person I care most about to help me.

Logic and emotion always fighting.

And what sucks the most is that I do think I’m making progress. I’ve been in treatment essentially since I met him and I am moving forward. My risk behaviours are way down. Almost none at all. I haven’t taken any really damaging overdoses or self harmed in months. I’m relying more heavily on drugs and alcohol to get through, but that’s less damaging. Maybe. The other day I was too trashed, slipped on a space hopper and broke my nose and possibly my teeth so it’s still a little bit damaging. My treatment is going good I think. I’m getting a new psychiatrist who I’m seeing tomorrow. I’m going to ask for maybe a mental health social worker if I can. I have housing and money problems now. My family home is supportive right now, but I don’t think it’s helping my mental health. After the drama, I feel kinda at a loss here. I love my family dearly, but after the drama and all the talk of not wanting to support me and how it’d be easier for them if I wasn’t here, it makes me need to go. I don’t know. I’ll be south of the river againIn a few days really. I have to learn to rely on myself. Money is a problem. My lack of structure is a difficulty. Basically, I’m in need to carving out a little life for myself.

So we’ll see. I’m going to hopefully start blogging a bit more about treatment and the steps I need to move forward and all that business. I want to start this up as a recovery blog again, but right now I’m not feeling strong in recovery right now. I thought maybe if I got this self indulgent stuff out of my system and started to find an outlet to talk about recovery techniques and skills and stuff again, maybe I could find some independent recovery focus again. I duno. It might not work and I might not keep the blogging up. We’ll see.

I’m going to read some blogs now. Distract myself from what’s happening right now and hopefully feel a little better. I think I need a lot of distraction right now. A lot of self soothe techniques, and general distress tolerance skills. Maybe I’ll blog about them soon.

I doubt anyone will I read this but maybe it’ll help me. Maybe write again soon.

So last night I called the HTT crisis line because I was so worked up and distressed and I’d just got off the phone to the Ex and I felt out of control and fast and mean and basically the whole world sucked and I blamed treatment.

I literally have nothing normal left in my life anymore. Since starting treatment over a year ago I’ve only lost things. I’ve lost thing after thing till now I’ve got nothing nice left. The only thing I’ve gained is a bunch of professionals that are paid to pretend to care about me, but make it pretty fucking clear they don’t give a fuck. I didn’t feel safe.

I told them I never wanted anyone to come to my house again. The guy I was speaking to is actually nice and he got worried. I told him I’d lost everything and that having people barely conceal their contempt for me only hurt me more and I didn’t want any part of it ever again. I told him I wanted out of it all and I didn’t feel safe and they weren’t helping and everything in my life has just be getting worse and worse. This went on for a little while and he eventually agreed to the HTT calling me instead of visiting this morning and told me he cared and was worried and would listen and I should call him back if I needed to.

I didn’t call back. Instead I self harmed. It was quite severe, but I managed it with my now expert injury first aid and eventually felt better enough to fall asleep at about 4am.

I then get woken up by the HTT knocking on my door, and not just them, but also my new key worker from CDAT. I got so angry and told them over and over I didn’t want them there and had been told they wouldn’t come and they refused to leave because I had to talk to the CDAT woman and I hate her and I hate them and they lied and I wasn’t dressed and I hate every single part of my mental health treatment.

After they left, I called the HTT and asked them never to come back again and I didn’t want anymore treatment from them. They lied to me and didn’t care and they make me hurt more. Apparently they’re going to call me this afternoon, but I don’t even think they will seeing as they are full of lies and don’t give a shit. They talked about sectioning me if I didn’t comply with them, but I can’t even see how they have the power to do that. You need like two psychiatrists to section someone, and it’s not like any of them talk to each other. Like this morning I was told they’d come back this evening, then on the phone I was told they’d come back tomorrow morning. None of them have any fucking clue what the plan for my treatment is. I doubt they could get two psychiatrists in the same fucking room.

I then called the CMHT to asked to be discharged from them. The Psychiatrist is on leave so I can’t leave them till next week.

Following that, I called the Psychologist and left a message for him to call back. He didn’t, so I left a subsequent message saying I never wanted to see him again. He eventually called back and said he “hopes I turn up and he won’t discharge me yet” and said he’ll leave it in my hands to contact him if I don’t go. I’m most angry with him because he pretends better than everyone else. And if he didn’t tell me the Ex was a cunt, I’d probably still have someone to love me. If he hadn’t told me it was ok to take time out of uni, I’d probably have a fucking degree. If he hadn’t told me I needed further help, none of the other fucking teams would be involved. And he called my fucking parents. How am I supposed to trust him?

I can’t get in touch with IMPART because I didn’t save their number and I’ve swapped phones. Imma try get their number from someone else, but I don’t know who yet. I fully intend to leave their services as well.

CDAT can go spin to be honest. I told her as much, but she made an appointment for me anyway. I’m not going to go. She said if I don’t go, she’ll call, but it’s not like I have to reply. Calls from mental health treatment places always come up as private numbers so its pretty easy to know which ones to ignore.

I then called uni to ask to formally drop out, but I have to talk to my personal tutor before I can do that and he’s not in so I emailed.

I want to be out of treatment now. Out for good. All I’ve got from treatment is a worse life. All I had left was my fucking degree and that’s gone now so fuck it. If I’d never started treatment, I probably could have aced a dissertation by now and be finished and not care that all my friends hate me and my family think I’m disgusting because I’d be pretty and small and that would be enough and I’d have a boy and future. Instead, I’ve complied with everything asked of me and have essentially lost everything. I make the Fam cry, the Brother always chooses others over me when I really need him, my friends all think I’m rubbish and weird, the Ex treats me rubbish and I hurt him and the DVIP people keep calling me to tell me how shit he is and he calls me to tell me how shit they are and now I’ve lost uni. The one fucking normal thing I had left.

So fuck them all. I did as I was told and tried and now I’m angry and alone and have horrendous withdrawal symptoms. I keep having panic attacks and can’t focus or sleep and get tremors all over and I fucking hate every part of ever having entered treatment. So I no longer have an eating disorder? It’s not like I have anything else.

It hurts me more to be surrounded by people who pretend they care then it does to be alone. It’s better to not have it rubbed in your face that the most important thing you do is provided by people who think you’re worthless. Fuck them all. Seriously.

Last night was really bad. I tried to distract myself, but it didn’t work for long.

I duno what flipped in me, but I flipped and got really agitated and distressed. I wound up on the phone to the HTT at midnight or summin with a bottle of aspirin and the full intent to die. Because they’re in and out of A&E at night, they had bad signal and promised to call me back in 10 minutes. It took me about 3 minutes to decide I couldn’t just sit, so I self-harmed pretty badly down my already gnawed up arms. Nothing that needed A&E, only steri-strips. That lasted about 45 minutes till I called them back again and there was no answer. So I then called the Crisis line, which was also useless and just burst into tears until they found someone to connect me to. He talked to me for about 45 minutes and persuaded me that yes I should take my meds rather than try to hoard them and I calmed a little, but still felt unsafe.

I got the Brother to come and sit with me. I told him how I felt honestly, even that I wanted to just die because it all burnt so much. I think that was brave of me. He made me some apple squash, put on Time Trumpet and watched it in bed with me and Afiq (my teddy). I even took my zopiclone, though it didn’t work so well. We got through the whole season before I felt sleepy, but he left me falling asleep to the Armando Iannucci Shows. The Brother was good and picked things that made me giggle and lifted my mood up a lot. He looks after me better than anyone else in the world. He doesn’t cry or tell me how he doesn’t understand or ask questions. He accepts it and goes “Right – let’s do something nice together right this second. For as long as it takes.” I need that when I’m feeling so desperately lost and low. I can’t find a way out myself, so asking me anything and expecting positive outcomes is ridiculous because I can’t find the answers.

I woke up not too drowsy and a little bit more hungry than I have been the past few days. I think the initial side effects of the zopiclone are wearing off a bit now. I was able to eat breakfast, a cookie and a big lunch, though I feel too sick to eat right now so I duno how dinner will fare up. I was in a foul mood though. I was angry. Like really angry. I was fuming at the HTT for not making it better and not taking me seriously. Sometimes I think I should just kill myself so people will finally believe I’m not making all this up. I get paranoid that everyone thinks I make it up so they don’t listen to me or take anything I say seriously. Then I start to think that I am making it all up and I’m fine, so I need to make myself less ok. Then I realise I’m not ok in the first place if I’m thinking of doing serious harm in order to get other people and myself to believe me. It’s a cycle of thought with no clear exit. Anyway, I was planning on shouting at them and telling them that they don’t care and don’t listen and don’t understand, but I managed to keep myself marginally acceptable when they came. I was argumentative and rude (which I regret), but I didn’t tell them how much I fucking hate them or anything. I don’t even hate them. I just felt like they didn’t care, which made me hate them at that moment in time.

Keeping my anger in didn’t last long though. I’ve been getting angry lately that the Pa wants to walk Juno all the time. We share care for her. He gives her breakfast and a quick morning walk, I give her a long daytime walk and lunch, the Ma feeds her dinner and the Pa gives her a quick evening walk. This works out well for me because generally, I’m home alone during the days, so I can walk her whenever and we get lots of bonding time. Granted, now the clocks have gone back, the walks will literally have to be earlier, but I have trouble motivating myself to do anything for hours once I wake up so I generally walk her between 3-6pm (now it’ll have to be 2-4pm. Fucking daylight savings). The Pa has some time off work because it’s half-term for the Ma and it was Eid on Friday so she had that off too. He’s kept asking me if he could walk her or saying “I’m thinking about walking Juno now” at like 1pm, whilst I’m probably still in pajamas. I’ve got it into my head that he hates that she’s not his dog and his dog only. I think he’s trying to steal her from me. My walks with Juno are one of my favorite parts of the day because I have music and my pup and autumnal weather, so this has been really getting to me. Juno looks after me and I love her and I don’t want her to stop loving me (some next level abandonment issues. I mean, come one – She’s a dog. She loves everyone). Anyway, I went downstairs to give her a hug and she ignored me calling and just sat by the Pa. Now I know she’s a dog and has no bad intentions, but this really really hurt me anyway. I then told the Pa he could walk her and he’d won and he’d got her all to himself now. I then ran upstairs and started hitting and biting and ripping etc. Obviously I had to go upstairs because I didn’t want Juno to feel stress in the household as it would upset her.

Anyway, the Brother came to talk to me and suddenly I was devastated. I was crying about how no one loved me and the Pa had stolen my dog from me and I had no one to care for me and even my dog can’t love me and blah blah blah. I was angry and devastated and confused. Mostly, I was just way too emotional. The Pa came into my room and I shouted and cursed and cried some more. Standard. He told me to just hug my puppy, but I told him she doesn’t love me anymore and I didn’t want to be rejected again etc. You know the drill. So I told him off, cried, and kicked him out my room. He threatened to send Juno to Battersea because he “doesn’t want a dog to tear a family apart” (which I think is a bit dramatic, but I know I was being dramatic too). I told him that I love her too much to let her go. It was a bit of a scene.

Once left alone to my own devices, feeling like death and wanting to self-harm, I checked the Daily Puppy (I know I keep going on about it, but still), just to see whether they’d accepted or rejected her. I did not expect to see my beautiful Juno staring at me as the puppy of the day 27th October 2012! All of a sudden, my mood changed entirely. I was ecstatic. I called the Pa and ran downstairs with my laptop to show him. I read all the comments, told everyone how many biscuits she had, started scouring twitter for all the Juno related tweets, ‘liked’ the Daily Puppy facebook page and shared their picture of Juno and commented on it and linked her profile on my page and was just really happy. As of right now, over 1,000 people on Facebook have ‘liked’ her picture and 54 have shared it, she has 1,611 biscuits and 52 comments on her Daily Puppy page. People are even putting her on Pintrest. I got major excitement. Bouncing off the walls excitement. We went on an extra long hour and a bit walk today so I could show my whole neighbourhood the puppy of the day. She’s a local celebrity, even though no one recognised her. I’m generally not someone to show off their pets like this, but with Juno I just feel so compelled. She’s too adorable.

Suddenly, I love everyone and everything and today is fantastic and I complied with the HTT treatment and took my medications in front of them. I promised I’d call again if I have another minor crisis or need to self-harm again tonight. The CMHT Psychiatrist (who will, at some point, be just the Psychiatrist, but I’m taking a transition period to not confuse people) emailed me this morning and told me I should go to the local Community Drug and Alcohol Team (CDAT) for help with my Valium issues. I emailed him back to tell him it was stupid this morning. I already have four teams involved in my care – adding another seems a bit much and a bit confusing. IMPART + CMHT + EDU + HTT + CDAT = waaaay to many acronyms. Plus, I’ve already been working on it myself to get off it. Then this evening I talked to the HTT about it and now I’m going to go tomorrow. I have to be there at 9:30am to get seen quickly as they only offer drop in sessions and the later you get there, the longer the wait, which sucks, but they’re in the same building as the HTT so I can kill two birds with one stone in that trip. Plus an extra hours walk is an extra hours worth of headphones so it’s not so bad. Still, at least group is cancelled this week so I don’t have that to cope with as well as all this other treatment malarky.

What is rubbish though is that, with the HTT coming twice a day (due to my tablet hoarding compulsions), I had to miss dog training today. The Pa can show me it all tomorrow so I can catch up, but I hate missing it, but it’s only one class and its session two, which is the same one I saw when I visited the group to see if it’d be good for Juno. I reckon I can figure it out better with the HTT by this time next week (if they’re even still seeing me twice daily. To be fair, if they are, I’d prefer them to come evenings anyway because I can’t got out in the dark as it is, but I can get them to come earlier).

This might sound all positive, but I’m not sure it is. Right now, I’m less excited. More lonely and sad. That’s probably because I just had some Valium though. The problem is, as I’m lowering my Valium intake or as more life stresses build up (having to repay my Professional Careers Development Loan, broke without a job for instance), my personal life gets more complicated and painful or my duloxetine needs to be upped or for whatever mixture of reasons, my emotions are becoming increasingly volatile. Both in a good, and bad way, they are getting more and more intense. More and more difficult to manage.

I’m getting more obsessive over little things too. Right now, I’m obsessively trying to decide between an iPhone 5 or a Galaxy SIII. I’m also obsessing over the Daily Puppy thing. It’s not like I mind being obsessive, but I find it hard to do anything else. Especially the things I need to do (like sort out how to pay off this loan and try to change my student bank account to Co-op so all my accounts are in one bank, thus easier to manage and getting the Psychiatrist to sort out my freedom pass etc.). I look over the same webpages again and again and I can’t not do it. Everything else becomes secondary to whatever I’m obsessing over. I’m also starting to get hyped up about my iPad 4 turning up (I had a major breakdown in Sainsbury’s, so even though it was against store policy, they gave me a refund so I pre-ordered the new one. Not a mini one though. I don’t want a mini one). I’m counting down days. Literally. It’s arriving on Friday and I cannot contain myself. Then on Monday I can upgrade my phone and well…. that’s its own minefield. These things cost money I shouldn’t spend, but I figure I can deal with it at some point in the future.

I’m also getting more irritable. Little things are triggering anger, rages and hate. Like the fact that it’s half term and the Fam are all around and I get irritated when they speak to me because this is my time and if they try to hard, I get angry and hate them. Of course, they are all trying too hard because the Psychologist told them about my increasing level of risk and stash of painkillers. I’m self-harming more and more, and it’s getting progressively worse. None of this is really that good. I’m not trying to stop it either. I don’t know how to and even if I did, I’m not sure I have the motivation for change. I’m acting as if I’m ready to change. I’m taking all the right steps and trying to do what I’m asked sometimes, but if they don’t watch me take my meds, I hoard them. I’m not trying to cut down on self-harm. I’m not giving the HTT my stash of pills like they keep asking. I’m perfectly aware of the fact that it’s dangerous to have them there as I tend to act on impulse, but I want to keep that option open and I know that if I gave them away, I’d just buy more the same day and not tell them.

So I don’t know if I’m doing good or not. I don’t know if I’m being compliant with treatment or not. I don’t know what I want to get out of it or if I’m ready to change. I don’t even know if I even need help or not. If I’m acting or I really feel like this. I don’t know what to do or if I’m doing everything wrong.

All I know is that no one hears me screaming and I’m desperate to find a way of letting the whole world know how much my insides burn so that someone will understand and make it better. I don’t even think that’s possible.

So the HTT are back again. I spoke to the Psychologist yesterday about my mood, increasing self-harms, suicidal impulses, stocks of pills and alcohol etc. and from that point on, it was all things go.

Firstly, he called my HTT and asked if they’d see me. They told him I had to refer myself, so he called me back and told me to do that and that if I didn’t, he’d be compelled to tell my parents. I got the Brother to call him to calm him a bit, then called the HTT. They would only accept a referral from the CMHT Psychiatrist. This is where it all went wrong.

The Psychologist is from my EDU, which is based in north London and is part of a NHS Mental Health Trust. My CMHT, HTT and IMPART are part of the North East London Foundation Trust. Basically, that means the communication between my primary care giver (the Psychologist I see weekly) and everyone else is essentially awful.

I called the Psychiatrist, but he was unavailable, so I called the Psychologist. He said he’d call the Psychiatrist then call me back. I called the Psychiatrist a lot of times and was given assurances he’d call as soon as possible. Then I just waited and waited.

At about five thirty in the afternoon, after giving up hope that anyone liked me or cared about my existence and convinced (yet again) that I should just kill myself, the Psychologist called back. Apparently he talked to the Psychiatrist and was told I’d be contacted. When I told him I hadn’t, he was pissed because he’d been told that they’d take up his issues. He then told me he had no choice but to call the Fam. He was all like “I don’t breach confidentiality lightly” and like “This comes from a place of care”, but seriously – fuck him.

So now the Fam know I have a stash of painkillers and I’m suicidal and ‘high risk’.

Luckily, I was out with the Pa at that point, so only him and the Brother knew, but I already knew what would await me at home. It would be tears and drama from the Ma. She’s terrified I’m going to die and I devastate her life.

Then, at 6pm, the Psychiatrist called and asked what was going on. I told him how fucked off I was that he’d messed up my Valium prescription and what my Psychologist had told me to tell him – suicidal intent over the past few days, worsening mood, worsening self-harm, stash of pills etc.. Because it was 6pm at this point, he couldn’t see me till Monday and told me I had to go to A&E. If he’d called half an hour earlier, I could have avoided the Famo issues and just gone to A&E whilst saying I was heading to the pub or something, but no.

I was right about the Ma. I got home – cue waterworks. Which in turn, rackets up my guilt, shame and suicidal thoughts. I don’t want to hurt my mum, but I do, every single day. Just by existing.

So anyway, I packed a bag, grabbed a really good friend and off to A&E I went. I was there from about 7pm till maybe 1am ish. The friend really helped lift my mood. He was fun with me and joked with me and made me feel better sometimes, though little triggers and memories kept knocking me back down again. Of course, me being a dick, I took razors to the hospital and cut myself in the bathroom. Seriously – who does that? Why am I such an idiot? Nurses had to dress my stupidity and I wasted their time. They were nice to me though. I’ve never been treated badly by A&E staff for my mental health issues, though I know for a lot of people this is a common occurence. I’ve only been treated well and kindly. I guess I’m lucky. I’ve always been offered the right, evidence based treatments, support when needed and been treated kindly. Maybe it’s because I’m in London. I know so many people haven’t had such luck.

Standardly, I had an ECG, my blood pressure taken, a blood test and a urine test. I don’t know why. My bloods were fine though, my blood pressure is a tiny bit below average (which is good) and my ECG was normal. Apparently I have a water infection. I hadn’t noticed, but now I’m on antibiotics for that too.

Anyway, it took till about midnight for the HTT people to see me, so now they’re back. I was sad because I wasn’t seen by someone I know and I wanted a recognisable face. I’m getting zopiclone now to help me sleep without Valium and green, which will hopefully help me feel better whilst cutting down on the diazepam, but will make me more drowsy in the day as my body isn’t resistant to it. And they’re going to provide me with Valium everyday so I don’t have to go cold turkey again. I slept through their appointment times this morning though so I’m not even sure if I’ll see them. They called and said they’d be coming, ad I know who it’ll be today and he’s lovely so that’s less scary, even if I don’t know what time it’ll be.

I’m still really on edge and have thought more than once about ending my life in the two hours I’ve been awake. Still, at least I had a good nights sleep. Now I’m just waiting and hoping the HTT turn up in time to settle me a bit. I’m fucking exhausted and have no appetite. The idea of eating anything makes me feel sick. And every time I go downstairs, the Ma looks at me like I break her heart and my whole body just aches with guilt and shame. I don’t know what to do.

So yer, I’m feeling really fucking low and I don’t know how much I’ll be blogging for a while. I’ll try keep up with reading, lurking and commenting, but I duno.

Today, I have an excruciating eye. I couldn’t sleep last night because it was so bad. Out of not where, my right eye started really hurting and now it’s red and swollen and sore. I don’t think it’s conjunctivitis because I’ve had that before and your eye goes all gunky, but it isn’t this time. It’s just really really painful. I saw my G.P. about it and he’s given me some drops and told me to go to A&E about it tomorrow morning when the eye unit opens because he thinks I scratched the cornea. Gah! It’s really horrid. It made today especially stressful, extra specially because I had a hair appointment and horrible pain eye with lots of hair in it is worse than just the eye on its own. Still, my hair is pretty.

So anyway, where are we at? I had a psych. appointment yesterday at the CMHT. I love my psychiatrist there. He’s so aces and not at all up himself like other psychiatrists I’ve seen. We talked about my upcoming assessment and he was really good about it. Again, another person who thinks that IMPART will take me on no sweat, though I’m still terrified obvs. The most important thing we talked about was my serious diazepam dependence though. He’s upping my prescription to help to ween me off it slowly rather than me lying and cheating in order to get enough to feed my habit. Now I’m prescribed 30mg a day which is better. I can’t sleep without at least 15mg, and the rest I munch throughout the day. Now there’s a real effort and plan to get me off it by lowering my dosage by 5mg every two weeks which is probably good.

I sometimes think I take too much medication. My pharmacist keeps a little log of what I take and when so that they don’t accidentally give me some combo that’ll fuck me up or be really ineffective because I’m such a regular. Right now, I have seven prescriptions in my name. Fucking hell. It makes me feel like one of those little old women with their pill boxes. I’m thinking of getting a pill box now though because they seem pretty useful. At least then I’d know remember what I’d taken and missed each day. Way too many meds.

Anyway, seeing my psychiatrist was surprisingly good, but I’d been anxious about yesterday for a whole host of reasons for a while now so I simply cracked and displaced that anxiety with consumer excitement. On Monday, I decided I was going to buy a tablet. I then spent hours and hours researching tablets on the Internet. I settled on a Samsung one, but in the end I couldn’t go to sleep I was so excited. I managed about 2 hours before waking up again at six in the morning with excitement. Only to research more and change my mind about the tablet I was getting obvs. Seriously, I haven’t been that excited in ages. It was like christmas or something. Purely uncontainable, childlike, overly agitated, adrenaline fuelled excitement. I felt kinda out of control. Tuesday involved a lot of running and jumping and skipping and tripping and dancing and singing and all sorts of ridiculousness. After my psych. appointment, I basically ran to get the bus to the big Sainsbury’s to pick up my new iPad 3 (my brother works in Sainsbury’s so I used his discount. I didn’t go that far in such a random direction for no reason don’t worry). I am now the proud owner of an iPad (late to the party I know), which I’m using to type this out because it’s exciting and fun and new. I’ve got so many apps you wouldn’t believe. And also, I finally get to play this Infinity Blade my brother has been harping on about. It is actually pretty fun though. That is, until your eye starts to get stabbing pains. Fucking eyes. Seriously, what the fuck?

I have so many nerves right now its ridiculous. I’m so close to being out of stress city though so hopefully I’ll calm down soon. At least the diazepam should help. Plus it should also mean less heavy reliance on other drugs to chill me the fuck out. I hate emotions. Hate hate hate them. So much. I self medicate to keep myself stable when actually, that’s a really shit idea. It’s just that if I’m completely sober, my brain starts whizzing about to all these annoying places and I get caught up in thoughts and start to get increasingly destructive and end up doing damage and increasingly becoming a danger to myself. It’s a problem for me. Except it’s crap because if your brain is constantly fried, you can’t do much else. It becomes a toss up between fried brain or fighting off suicidal thoughts. I’m really hoping that once I’m through stress city it’ll be ok. At least I have Ben Goldacre and my new iPad to distract myself. Hopefully they’ll work and I’ll be ok. At least when my eye gets better. Tomorrow I’ll probably spam the Internet with many A&E waiting room posts. Gosh you lucky people. You get to read along with me moaning.

This whole post has been a whole lot of not talking about what bothers me most today. You’d think it was my eye, but it isn’t. It’s more to do with being a massive prick and having such changeable moods and not knowing how to predict myself and upsetting people and not wanting to be a let down, but I’m not really sure how to modify all this though. The CMHT psychiatrist guy says therapy with IMPART will help, but that doesn’t stop me from being a prick right now. Ack! I’m being cryptic so I’m going to stop now. Stupid girl.

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Basically, I password some of my posts. I do it because this blog was designed for, and therefore read by, people in my real world. Rarely, I'll blog about things I'm not all that comfy sharing yet. However, if you're interested in having a looksy, give a shout in a comment somewhere and chances are, I'll give it to you. Sozzles.